Five Vulcans Jim Met, One He Kept
by reflecting
Summary: "Basically, she wanted to put her hands all over my huge ass belly, and get up close and personal with Jimmy using that nifty touch telepathy of yours," Winona concludes. Spock looks horrified and Jim is torn between face-palming and bursting out in hysterical laughter. "Talk about alien probing."
1. T'Lana

**Relationships:** Spock/James T. Kirk  
**Characters:**_ James T. Kirk, Winona Kirk, OCs, T'Pring, Sarek, Frank, Spock Prime, Spock_  
**Additional Tags:** _Tarsus IV, Allusions to abuse and PTSD, Panic Attacks__  
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**A/N:** Uh. So, this happened.

No beta, and English isn't my first language, so please excuse any grammatical errors/typos :) Thanks, and enjoy!

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**oOo**

**T'Lana**

**oOo**

The first Vulcan Jim ever has contact with is not someone he remembers. His mother, many years later with Spock by his side, tells him about it in a fond but a wary voice (their relationship is, was, and probably always will be, strained). The Vulcan was part of a team of scientists from the VSA, stationed on the Kelvin during what was to become its last voyage. She was called T'Lana, youngest in her group and perhaps the most curious, if Vulcans can be described as such (Jim knows they can. He has a theory of them actually being the nosiest bastards in creation (this was his opinions before the creepy Asshole Aliens – Assloanians or something – that collected 'peculiar species' for their 'scientific displays'. In other words: zoos. Bones has still got Jim's glittery loincloth framed somewhere)). She had expressed her interest in the human pregnancy cycle and put forward a formal request to attend the routine physical check-ups of Winona Kirk and her unborn son.

"Basically, she wanted to put her hands all over my huge ass belly, and get up close and personal with Jimmy using that nifty touch telepathy of yours," Winona concludes. Spock looks horrified and Jim is torn between face-palming and bursting out in hysterical laughter. "Talk about alien probing."

He settles for both.

Spock clears his throat as discreetly as he can, but still ends up sounding distinctly strangled (a sure sign of extreme emotional scarring, which is on par with conversing with any Davieses, really. People who assume the crazy comes from the Kirk side of the family has not done their research; Winona Davies is still a name which sets fear in the hearts of…well, most of the 'Fleet, actually). "I can only speculate that she wanted to establish some sort of mental contact with a growing fetus, perhaps to investigate the brain activity of a psi-null individual not yet fully formed. Did she succeed?"

Winona smiles, a little wistfully. "Eventually, yes. Jimmy was apparently a charmer even then, 'cause she kept coming back, going on about dynamic minds and how fascinating it was that I didn't have a telepathic bond, yet there was clearly something there which she couldn't define." She pauses, an old sadness marring her face. "Her last little mental cooing and Vulcan baby-talk with Jimmy was just three days before the attack. She didn't survive to see him born."

'She wasn't that lucky', she thinks, but doesn't add. 'Not as lucky as I.'

**oOo**

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**A/N: **As of 24/8 2014, 3 out of 6 chapters have been written. Will update.


	2. T'Pring

**oOo**

**T'Pring**

**oOo**

The second Vulcan Jim (she knows him as Davies) meets is less interested in him and more resentful, at first. Her name's T'Pring and she's 15 ('—point 32 Earth—') years old to Davies' 13. Her mother works within agricultural sciences and T'Pring helps maintaining the school's primitive technology as practical exercise. Davies is more interested in the sharp tilt of her eyebrows, the curve of her breasts and the length of her legs, than anything else when they first meet. He says she's a delightful bundle of prickly, teenage angst that snipes and snaps like a pissed off feline that's been dumped in ice cold water whenever he's around, and he finds it hilarious. She does not, of course.

"Why are you here then, if it's so illogical?" he asks once, after listening to her 'bitch' (illogical, she is merely expressing her opinion, and it has nothing to do with the female canine) about humans and 'egging her on' with 'helpful comments' that she 'totally appreciates somewhere in that dark, cold heart of hers' (she's quoting in an attempt to make sense of the garbled use of Standard they boy seems to prefer. She is not amused, definitively not. Because that would imply positive feelings. Towards Davies).

"As you know, I am bonded to a Half-Human, and this colony consist of 74.209% Human inhabitants. My Father believed, as Mother was given an opportunity to work here, that it would be logical for me to accompany her for a short period of time in order to gain further understanding of my future bondmate," she does not snap. Or growl.

"I'll never get over the fact that you're married," Davies muses, kicking his feet back and forth where he sits on top of the counter T'Pring's manning. "But anyway, it does sound logical. I take it you don't agree?"

She huffs, her dark skin flushed slightly green from her agitation. "There are already Humans stationed on Vulcan. It'sillogical to move here in order to observe them, when I can already do that at home."

Davies hums and titles his head, watching her glare balefully at the computer station. "The point isn't to observe though, is it? More like, actually live with us and experience us. Less of the 'us' versus 'them' though, and more of, I don't know, some good old IDIC?"

Surprised, T'Pring snaps her gaze to his and stares for a moment. "I was unaware that you were familiar with the Vulcan philosophies."

Rolling his eyes, Davies snatches a PADD from the pile of faulty, ignored ones waiting for repair. "Contrary to popular belief, I'm neither stupid nor ignorant. I have been listening to what you've been saying the last few weeks, you know. It's mostly a pile of xenophobic, angsty bullshit and petty whining, but if you choose to treat this as a punishment rather than an opportunity, that's obviously your choice."

T'Pring is silent for a while as Davies starts to work, watching him out of the corner of her eye as she fiddles with the computer they're using to analyze the communication failure of the school's PADDs and communicators that's been occurring. It's a time-consuming, if mind-numbingly boring, past-time (a job for T'Pring, almost always detention for Davies).

"The control of my emotions has been slipping to the point where I have allowed my frustration to guide my words and actions. I have…expressed them upon you for 2.3 weeks, yet you have not retaliated with angry words – or actions – of your own."

Davies seems to be waiting for more and when she refuses to elaborate, he looks over to find her squirming in discomfort. "Well, I don't give much of a shit what you think of me or 'us Humans'. Haters gonna hate, and all that. Besides, you're just homesick and angry 'cause you've got no control of the situation. We all lash out."

"Haters gonna hate?" she repeats, frowning slightly and ignoring the rest of his comment and its implications.

"Yeah. Basically means that you just can't change some people's minds about some things. If they're set on hating you, nothing you're gonna do will ever change that. They'll find something bad in anything you do, even if it's not," he shrugs, trying and failing to not sound bitter.

"Disregarding the argument for what defines as 'good' and 'bad', this implies one should not bother to 'do good', when it will all be 'bad' all the same," she points out, titling her head. Davies bites his lip, humming in thought.

"Well, that's one way to do it," he agrees. "Or, you could think of it like this; there are some people out there who will always rationalize some things in order for these things to always be 'bad', just as they would 'good'. Wouldn't you rather be someone who sees the potential of 'good', then? Like, an opinion which remains stale solely by refusing to invite further perspectives and thus knowledge, isn't that illogical? Let's take your hybrid husband, for example. " T'Pring makes a noise of protest but is ignored. Spock is not her husband. Yet. "From the way you emphasize his Human half whenever you speak of him, and the way you've spoken of Humans, I gather you find him lacking. You focus on what you perceive as Human weaknesses and failings, and project them on him, disregarding the fact that beyond our species, we're actualindividuals. There'll always be strengths and weaknesses; what makes you weak might make him strong." T'Pring blinks. "Of course, I can't really expand much further on this argument as I don't even know the guy's name, and you've painted him in a pretty bleak light so far, but for the sake of argument, y'know."

"Of course," she says, slightly dazed. "There are many flaws in your argument, but it seems I have been remiss in dismissing you as stimulating company."

Davies grins, and winks. "Oh Catwoman, just you wait. I can be plenty stimulating for a pretty thing like you!"

She laughs for the first time in…years, then. Well, it's a small huff of a giggle but leaves her completely startled and unnerved. Narrowing her eyes, she turns back sharply to her computer. "We have much work to accomplish before 1600. You have distracted us long enough."

.

Communications continue to fail, and it spreads. Crops die. People die. She touches her fingers to his temple and calls him friend in her dead Mother's tongue, weak from cold and hunger (a moment of delusion). They survive, barely. They're neither on the good list, which is irony. She's Vulcan, and Davies' health is considered fragile (a drain on resources, a burden for the colony) due to too many allergies.

"My Father would have felt my Mother die. Her bonds have been severed," she rasps, huddled close for warmth. There are more children hiding with them now, mostly thanks to Davies' illogical (but good, she realizes) refusal to leave them behind. It's a number she knows will be declining.

"Sounds like hell," he mutters. She's silent. "Hey, how're you holding up?"

"I'm…unstable. I…the bond, it aches," she whispers in desperation, her hands shaking. Jim covers them with his own, squeezing gently. There's nothing erotic about it, just gentle waves of affection and fierce protection. She breaks, but his hope and determination holds her together for just a little bit longer. When Starfleet finally arrives, when help comes, they bring her Father and food and warmth and sleep.

They separate her from Davies. Perhaps this too is a good thing (as his strength, as his will to live). He says he wants to leave all of Tarsus IV behind, all of it, and that would mean leaving her behind too, wouldn't it?

She tries to locate him nonetheless, if only to send him a message (they never said good bye, she forgot to demand helives long and prospers). She only finds a 'T. Davies' before the records are sealed beyond her ability to access (legally or otherwise). She considers for a moment to ask Spock for help – he is unmatched in his skill of handling computers, after all – but that would be…illogical. She has done him few favors in the past, and she doubts he has any favors now to grant her because of it.

(Upon Vulcan's destruction, while away on a science vessel on commission of the VSA, she has collected approximately 3.4 'postcards' a year after parting ways with Davies. She learns after the third one that his actual name is James Tiberius Kirk. Each of their 'little group of survivors' have received one, though hers had remained the most constant over the years. She is inexplicably relieved she keeps them – and many other illogical keepsakes – at her Earth residence, before she 'soldiers on' and deals with yet another tragedy).

What she does, upon returning to Vulcan, is…to demand they break her betrothal bond to Spock.

To her Father and the healers, she claims to be too emotionally compromised to properly balance a Half-Human's alreadycompromised mental discipline. It is, perhaps, partly true. It takes her a number of years (5.6 Earth years) to achieve a satisfactory mastery of mind and emotion as expected of a Vulcan female her age. Her Father has it done with perhaps surprisingly little questions regarding her reasoning, but she finds herself relieved. She has spent long enough defendingherself on that planet to do it here.

To Spock, she tells the full truth (she has new respect for Humans now, and she understands the world a little better, questions it a little more). She intends to follow in her Mother's footsteps. There is a burning need somewhere deep down, to prevent that happening again (rotten fields, burning flesh, hunger). While she does this, she does not intend to be bound somewhere (to someone) not of her own choosing. She touches his cheek with her fingers and allows him to feel the truth of her words, the fondness she has uncovered for him that is more brother than beloved.

They part as friends.

**oOo**


	3. Sarek

**!WARNINGS!**

Panic Attack

Allusions to PTSD & Abuse

**Okay, some things I want said first:**

I have never suffered a panic attack.

I took creative license describing it, drawing on how I've read it being described before. People's experience of it can differ, and it's in no way a thing to take lightly. I had no intentions of being offensive when I wrote it, and I do sincerely hope that I will not offend anyone, but if you do get put off by reading of panic attacks written by someone who hasn't experienced them, **please don't subject yourself to this**. But if you want to read anyway, and feel you can and want to be helpful, I more than welcome advice and tips on how to alter it if I've made it come across awfully wrong :) 3

That said, Sarek will come off as a little OOC in this. He's a bit more emotional. It's not explained why in the story, because this is Jim's PoV and he doesn't know what Sarek's usual behaviour is, but my reasoning for the way Sarek acts you can find in the end notes :)

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**oOo**

**Sarek**

**oOo**

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Jim Kirk will remember. But on the Enterprise, during and after Nero, he's haunted by a niggling sense of familiarity whenever Ambassador Sarek nudges his perception. It'll take him a while – until their first (actually second) real interaction – for it to click. Jim blames the stress, and his ability to wrap bad shit up and hide them under a carpet in his mind so he doesn't have to look at it. Most of his childhood is there, gathering dust mites, actually.

(Hey, it's how he functions. It works.)

.

He is fifteen years old and an open, festering wound: angry at the world, angry at the universe, at himself. He hasn't been to his therapy sessions for weeks, mainly because his mother is no longer around to forcefully drag him there, and Frank…well, Frank couldn't give less of a shit. As far as Frank is concerned, Jim's either locked up in his room or out drinking and/or screwing anything that moves.

Which is funny, because currently Jim is blowing spitballs of paper on a Starfleet monument in San Francisco. It's of Zefram Cochrane and a Vulcan, honoring the First Contact. Jim's managed to lob a ball of paper onto Cochrane's nostril, making it look like he's got a white bugger hanging out. Very amusing to a fifteen year old with a questionable sense of humor.

Not so amusing to the red-faced Starfleet officer coming at him like a raging bull, practically fuming out of his ears. Jim doesn't notice until it's too late, however, since the man had chosen to attack from behind. It happens fast: one minute, Jim's trying to hit the metal Vulcan in the head, the next he's got an unknown hand wrapped around the back of his neck, shaking him, while a booming voice makes his ears ring.

It's not pretty.

Time slows: he can feel his heartbeat everywhere, quickening along with his breath, and the ringing in his ears gets worse until it's a menacing buzz, muting the world and narrowing his sight to blurry colors and sharp, jerky movements.

He's losing himself. There's no air, he can't move, he can't think. The air smells like cloying death: dead wheat, dead bodies, rotten fruits and rotten flesh. His stomach clenches – he's so hungry, he's so thirsty and tired and scared – they're dying, they're not coming for them, they're leaving us to die.

It stops.

There's a blanket wrapped around his mind, warm and comfortable and home-made by someone's grammy. It smells of someone's home: lived-in, loved. It's like a gentle, warm hand settles on his head, fingers combing through his hair like his mom used to do when he was smaller and looked less like his father. It's like a cup of hot chocolate warming his hands, like T'Pring's fingers on the side of his head whispering friend in languages that goes beyond the physical. He feels a shock of surprise, but dismisses it. There's nothing to be surprised at in his own mind, he knows the dark spots so well, knows what's been torn open and left to rot. There's a sadness somewhere. He can relate: he's a sad excuse of a human being. The blanket tightens around him and he feels like he's just taken a breath after being under water for too long. Relief pours over him and he snuggles closer to that feeling of warmth, to the steady beat of a heart.

.

When Jim opens his eyes, it's like waking up after having blacked out. He's done it enough to not panic at gaining consciousness between one moment and the next. It doesn't make it less unpleasant or disorientating, however, and it takes a few beats before reality sets in.

He's inside, on a (godawful, uncomfortable-as-fuck, must-be-made-of-rock) couch. The walls and ceiling are muted, brown- and reddish colors, the lights dim but strong enough to not strain your eyes. Jim instantly likes it, because it's not the clinical white of claustrophobic hospitals, nor the dull grey of indifferent official buildings where souls go to die a slow death. There are three doors; each with a lock he estimates would take 4 to 5 minutes to hack. Two security cameras, five blind spots. A heavy looking figurine blunt enough to knock someone out, a small table to swing around if you're in a pinch, and a stick-like object if push came to shove.

The tell-tale pressure of restraint around his wrist is, surprisingly, the last thing that registers. Jim instantly tenses, because that should've been the first thing, the absolute vital thing, to act on. He's punched people trying to wake him by shaking his shoulder. He's stopped, dropped, and rolled when someone's tried to grab his attention by tugging at his sleeve. The flight or fight reflex is his most finely honed one, but for some reason, it hasn't been triggered by whoever is holding his wrist in a steady but firm grip.

For some reason, a blanket comes to mind. Jim wrinkles his nose in confusion, but finally turns his head to see who's got a hold of him.

He blinks, and sits up. It's an old Vulcan.

"I am not even considered middle aged by my people, Mister Kirk. I am not old."

Jim jerks in shock, but then belatedly remembers touch telepathy and frowns down at where they're connected.

"I apologize," the Vulcan dude (his funny eyebrow twitched at that) says, before withdrawing his hand. Jim's wrist is left feeling oddly warm, and tingly. He rubs at it. "Given the fraught mental state I found you in, and the considerate amount of time it took to calm it, I wished to prevent further strain on your mind that the shock of regained consciousness could potentially cause."

"Um, thanks?" was all Jim could say to that, because he's just now putting things together and making sense of his situation. He shakes his head, attempting to clear it, before narrowing his eyes and eying the Vulcan. "I was…admiring the Cochrane statue." Never implicate yourself. "I had a panic attack? I blacked out, for some reason, anyway. You must've found me, or someone must've brought me to you, or something. We're most likely at the Vulcan embassy, considering it's pretty close to where I last remember being." He shifts uncomfortably. "Do y'know what happened to me?"

The Vulcan tilts his head in what appears to be confirmation. "While you were…admiring the monument," he begins, something that could be amusement in the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, before the stoic face settles into something that manages to somehow exude disdain and disapproval for what he continues with. "There was a man – Starfleet Officer, Lieutenant Jones – who allowed his emotions to decide accosting a teenage human was a sound decision. He further proved his lack of rational thought and logic by continuing despite obvious and alarming signs of a panic attack. My wife and I…intervened."

Jim blinks and thinks he should feel worse about this than he does. The hot flush of shame that overtakes him after each humiliating incident like this over the years hasn't come over him yet. There is a soothing calm in his mind he's not accustomed to, and it makes him feel…weird.

"Thanks," he mutters, finding himself uncharacteristically polite. Something about this Vulcan doesn't incite him as everything else around him seems to do ever since then. He isn't angry. He doesn't feel like lashing out. Like he said,weird. "Uh. Who are you, exactly?"

The Vulcan does that head tilt thing again. "I am Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan."

There's a few beats of silence. "Holy fuck, you're shitting me. Ambassador?!"

Frank is going to shit bricks if he ever finds out.

.

He does. Find out, that is. Not shit bricks, sadly.

He finds out because Vulcans are law-abiding stiffs who can't see the totally valid logic in letting a fifteen year old human take care of himself with one legal guardian off in deep space and the other passed out on a ratty couch in Bumfuck Nowhere, Iowa. Jim finds this out after he gets picked up by the police and brought to a red-faced, frothing-at-the-mouth kind of angry Frank the day after he sneaked out of the Vulcan embassy behind the way-too-trusting Vulcans' backs.

(It took him 3 minutes to hack the locks. Apparently wanting to get the hell out of dodge is illogical and thus not expected. He never got to meet Mrs. Sarek – Amanda Greyson, it turns out – much to his later regret.)

"You little shit," Frank greets him. "Just you wait 'til your mother hears of this!"

The calm he'd enjoyed from whatever voodoo Ambassador Sarek worked on his mind with that freaky telepathy thing is a thing of the past. He wants to punch the universe in the face again. Order has been restored.

"Oh fuck off."

.

The Enterprise is limping back to Earth and Jim is taking a moment to lick his wounds in a darkened corner of the observation deck when Sarek finds him.

They don't really speak, merely stands next to each other for a while. Sarek is the one who finds his words first.

"Your mind was a field of devastation. I had experienced nothing like it, until now," he begins, voice low and quiet. "I saw the wounds Tarsus IV had left on your mind, and the emotional and physical trauma abuse and neglect caused. For a Human, your mental strength was impressive. I came to the conclusion you belong to the low percentage of Humans that are not entirely Psi-null."

Jim has no idea where this is going, but he's torn between discomfort and being affronted – the Ambassador had looked deeper into his mind than Jim had assumed. If it was anything like the mind meld with the other Ambassador he'd suffered through (and wasn't that a mind-fuck of its own), he might actually punch a wall. Bad touch. Vulcans clearly had a different view on what was and wasn't off limits, touch-telepathy-wise.

"If this is your way of asking how to deal with – uh, a field of devastation? – this is me, telling you now, that I am not your guy," he warns instead. "I'm not exactly stellar at dealing with shit in a healthy, productive manner."

Sarek looks at him, stoic as ever, but the eyes gives him away (it's always the eyes with these people, Jim muses). "No. But it is…reassuring, to observe the continued survival. Of life determined to live. May we find the will to go on, Captain Kirk."

Resting a hesitant hand on the Vulcan's shoulder, Jim bows his head. "I grieve with thee."

There is silence for a moment, before Sarek speaks, low and quiet into the space between them. "Thank you."

**oOo**

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**A/N: **The reason for Sarek's emotionalism during their first meeting is that having helped calm Jim's mental state through telepathy, there was some emotional transfer. His shields are a little less solid, and he was unsettled by what he learns that Jim has been through. So, a little less control over his emotions.

As for their second meeting, well. He's lost his planet and his wife, and almost lost his son. He's a cool cucumber but yeah, he is no machine.

*coughs* Anyway...

Hope you enjoyed! 8D


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